“Are you afraid?”
“Oh, no; I’m not afraid, Pierre.”
“If one life would be enough, I’d give
mine a thousand times. Mary, we are to die.”
An arm slipped around his neck—a cold hand
pressed against his cheek.
“Pierre.”
“Yes.”
The thunder broke above them with a mighty roaring.
“You have no fear.”
“Mary, if I had died alone I would have dropped
down to hell under my sins; but, with your arm around
me, you’ll take me with you. Hold me close.”
“With all my heart, Pierre. See—I’m
not afraid. It is like going to sleep. What
wonderful dreams we’ll have!”
And then the black mass of the landslide swept upon
them.
Down all the length of the mountain-desert and across
its width of rocks and mountains and valleys and stern
plateaus there is a saying: “You can tell
a man by the horse he rides.” For most other
important things are apt to go by opposites, which
is the usual way in which a man selects his wife.
With dogs, for instance—a quiet man is apt
to want an active dog, and a tractable fellow may
keep the most vicious of wolf-dogs.
But when it comes to a horse, a man’s heart
speaks for itself, and if he has sufficient knowledge
he will choose a sympathetic mount. A woman loves
a neat-stepping saddle-horse; a philosopher likes a
nodding, stumble-footed nag which will jog all day
long and care not a whit whether it goes up dale or
down.
To know the six wild riders who galloped over the
white reaches of the mountain-desert this night, certainly
their horses should be studied first and the men secondly,
for the one explained the other.
They came in a racing triangle. Even the storm
at its height could not daunt such furious riders.
At the point of the triangle thundered a mighty black
stallion, his muzzle and his broad chest flecked with
white foam, for he stretched his head out and champed
at the bit with ears laid flat back, as though even
that furious pace gave him no opportunity to use fully
his strength.
He was an ugly headed monster with a savagely hooked
Roman nose and small, keen eyes, always red at the
corners. A medieval baron in full panoply of
plate armor would have chosen such a charger among
ten thousand steeds, yet the black stallion needed
all his strength to uphold the unarmored giant who
bestrode him, a savage figure.
When the broad brim of his hat flapped up against
the wind the moonshine caught at shaggy brows, a cruelly
arched nose, thin, straight lips, and a forward-thrusting
jaw. It seemed as if nature had hewn him roughly
and designed him for a primitive age where he could
fight his way with hands and teeth.
This was Jim Boone. To his right and a little
behind him galloped a riderless horse, a beautiful
young animal continually tossing its head and looking
as if for guidance at the big stallion.
